Air Travel - Entry 6

D6.M5.Y19.
São Paulo

Writing Challenge - entry 6

Novelty of air travel has completely lost its charm on me quite some time ago. I was living in Philadelphia at the time and constantly had a need to travel to Toronto. That journey of about 850km would take about 7 hours to drive or 5 hours to fly. Although, the flight would only take a little more than 90 minutes, when you factor in time from home to airport, check-in times, overly paranoid security checks, passport control and customs, some leeway for coffee and newspaper, and finally, time from airport to final destination... it all adds up to a lot of waiting, occasional hassle and about 5 hours. Traveling the same distance by land would require about 6.5 hours of driving, plus occasional breaks and the border crossing which usually didn't take too long.

There are ways to shave off some of the flight time by checking in online and getting Nexus or Global Entry. There are plenty of travel hacks out there.Yet, I still preferred to drive. Traveling by air leaves me feeling like an inhabitant of a concentration camp that has been dressed up into a shopping mall. First thing to notice is that most of the cafes, shops and mediocre dining are after the security check. So, before you can get yourself a $38 pre-flight cup of what passes for coffee, you have to line up in a queue, wait your turn, remove everything from your pockets, your belt, laptop, ebook and sometimes shoes, lay them all out on trays, get a radiation shower, line up in another queue and then provide rehearsed answers to equally enthusiastic individual asking rehearsed questions. Once you've gotten that part over with, you have to wait some more. This time, you can sit back and observe how airplane boarding process is an exercise in inefficiency. There are plenty of optimization algorithms that can improve this process, but the system isn't interested. Who pays more gets to go before those who pay less. So what? We all still arrive at the exact same time... As you watch other passengers carrying way more than can fit in overhead bins, you try to guess when the cabin crew will start forcing people to check their luggage - group 3? group 4? At least that's what I do. Absence of comfort on airplanes makes me wonder why airlines even bother to advertise their legroom. It's like saying 'look, we've got seats that aren't just made of skate boards.' Then there is the temperature. Quite often, I found myself on a flight that was too hot and I usually only wear a t-shirt when I fly. This was the case on a recent flight to Brazil and cabin crew still went around giving out blankets. I guess there is a requirement for that from some airport star-rating authority. You've survived this far. You're in your seat. Chances are pretty good that the single-serving friend next to you is an overweight arm-rest dominator, that there is a child raised on Ritalin behind you kicking the back of your seat and that several corn-fed babies crying their way into obscurity are peppered throughout the cabin. Before this circus is ready to get airborne, you are forced to attend a seminar on what to do in an event of an emergency. I get it, it is a regulatory requirement and the rest of your behavior is carefully coordinated by your shepherds. The part that bothers me is that, as of recently, this became an advertising platform to force feed you some new novel credit card or some similar scam. Now you have to spend next few hours in this tin can with mildly filtered air which is more of a cesspool than a gas chamber, but it's a hard tell. Most times I end up with a pathogen or two after these ordeals. Most of the continental flights that ferry my grumpy ass around don't offer much more than three peanuts for in-flight cuisine. When they do feature a more comprehensive meal arrangement, it is likely to be gently nuked prison food on a plastic tray with plastic utensils and plastic kitchenware. The only thing you can always count on being a good bet on a flight is tomato juice. 

Overland travel, by stark contrast, is a wonderful experience! It is very simple. I've already done my own checks on myself and my vehicle. I'm fueled and on the road on my own time and on my own terms. My seat is only as comfortable as I made it or chose it when I got my wheels. Most of the time, I am not cruising down a rainbow on a cloud of angel's farts, but still significantly more comfortable than the skateboard seat of a Boeing 777. When I get uncomfortable, or see a pretty view, or need a toilet, or just want to get up and walk around a bit, I can do so. Best of all, I can do that without getting in anyone's way, without forcing my neighbors to get up as well, without something falling on my head and without someone saying "floor is vibrating.. auto-pilot told the captain to tell me to tell you to go back to your designated seat.." When I get hungry, there's always a place to stop and eat what I choose from a menu and someone in the kitchen will make it for me. When the road gets bumpy, it often gets fun. Delays and detours are often the heart of that adventure. That is what overland travel always is - an adventure. Chasing horizon on my own terms, aiming to make a good time but prepared for detours, views, coffee stops in different new places, yelp-hunting great grub and octane pumped R'n'R soundtrack echoing from the exhaust. 

As far as I can make it out, air travel is for people in a hurry; overland travel is for people with thirst for life and experience. And choosing to gamble everything on my own destiny, I will always prefer the open road.